Group payments to organisations 104-24092648

The Group Payment Scheme allows Services Australia to send payments to an organisation (for example, aged care home, disability enterprise or public trustee) for pension customers as a bulk amount. Group payment arrangements generally occur when the customer lives in residential care, or when a public trustee is managing the customer's financial affairs responsible for the customer's needs.

The Group Payment Scheme can be used where the organisation receives pension payments for 10 or more customers. If an organisation receives payments for less than 10 customers, they can be appointed payment nominee for the customers.

A bulk amount is paid to the organisation each fortnight on Entitlement Period End Date (EPED) B/Delivery Date D for all the pension customers they receive payments for. The customers have their payment destination updated to the organisation’s group payment Code (also known as Group Institution Code or a Group Home Code).The organisation receives a schedule which shows each customer's name, Customer Reference Number (CRN) and the amount of pension the customer was paid in the fortnight ending on EPED B.

If an organisation wants to become a group payment organisation, see Organisation wants to become a group payment organisation.

Group Payment Organisations (GPOs) must have a record created under their Australian Business Number (ABN), with stakeholder code and service reason TPP (Third Party Payments). This record is then linked to a 3-character Group Payment Code in the RDF tables with the organisations bank account details.

Regular payments (and any immediate payments) can only be issued to the organisation nominated on Entitlement Period End Day (EPED) B. Care must be taken to ensure when paying arrears (for example, as a result of finalising a new claim) reissuing a payment, or granting an Advance or urgent payment for customers who are on a group payment arrangement, as a payment issued on any other EPED, or exceeding the system limit, will fail to deliver. See Reissuing a rejected payment.

Customers cannot be on weekly payments for their pension to be delivered by group payment. If the customer is not taken off weekly payments, their pension payment will reject. If the customer is on reporting, and they or their nominee report late, this will also lead to their pension being rejected from delivering with the group payment.

Organisations receive their fortnightly group payment schedule via Letters in Business Hub. This is required to reconcile the group payment received and allocate the correct payment amount to each customer.

Note: any organisations that have not transitioned to Business Hub and are still accessing their group payment schedules via Centrelink Business Online Services (CBOS), must transition over to Business Hub.

Each person at the organisation is required to create a Provider Digital Access (PRODA) account and obtain a Registration Authority (RA) number. The organisation’s Business Hub Access Manager can give access to their staff for the organisation record in Business Hub once they have an RA number. For more information, see Managing personnel and updating details in Business Hub

Group payment schedules can be accessed online from the Thursday morning following payment delivery (EPED B / Delivery Date D). Organisations that receive their schedules online will not receive a paper copy of their schedule; however, the fortnightly schedule can be reprinted by Service Officers if requested and will issue via surface mail.

If a group payment schedule has not been received, staff must lodge a service request with mySupport. The Process page contains specific instructions in these situations.

Organisations that receive their fortnightly schedule online can request reprinted copies of the schedule from the agency. Schedules can be reprinted from the History Summary (HS) screen up to 62 days from the date of payment or, if 62 days or more, they can be retrieved from the Archive and Culling Engine (ACE).

If a group payment organisation wants to change their bank account that the customers’ payments are paid into, they need to contact National Business Gateway.

To add a group payment arrangement, the customer (or their authorised representative) and the group payment organisation must complete an Adding or ending a group payment arrangement form (SS270). Note: the previous version of the SS270 form Send my payment to an institution - Group Payment is still able to be accepted for starting a group payment arrangement.

To end a group payment arrangement, the customer (or their authorised representative) can contact the agency to request this change, see Changing payment destination. New payment destination information for the customer is needed when ceasing a group payment arrangement. The group payment organisation can use the Start or end a group payment arrangement form (SS270) to cease the arrangement. The organisation is not permitted to provide the customer’s new payment destination information. Contact with the customer or their authorised representative is needed when processing a request to end the arrangement.